I felt mortified by my unproductivity. No matter if it’s work, learning, or even yoga and meditation, the variety of definitions for usefulness has been indoctrinated in me. Work is encouraged for realizing self-worth to emanate to society. Yoga is allowed only because it sutures the wounds from overworking.
Every second, I vigilantly counted my worth based on how I spent time, like a bomb with a countdown timer, ticking only at the mercy of satisfactory productivity.
Yet I realized most people did much worse than I did. They don’t even face their own anxiety when they schedule me as a precise one-hour invite on their calendar.
“What are you building now?”
As if your life would gradually disintegrate into entropy if you didn’t build something upwards.
I grew loneliness. No—
I discovered loneliness, from the precocity of being a foreigner in the U.S. after graduation. I can’t find anyone who can punctuate my existence of mine. They are all too busy shaping their holograms of that future, accomplished self.
I can’t help noticing that someone trying to pick me up at a bar might have paid more attention to me than those around me. At least they lock their eyes on me, rather than browse me in the background. At least, for a brief moment, I feel seen. Not that an infant who received everything except attention.
Yet, for all my complaints about others, I’m still mortified by my own unproductivity. Sitting without performing feels excruciating, even as my body screams with resistance at the thought of advancing further.
“Our company works hard, including nights and weekends. Is that okay for you?” I hung up the phone, feeling too timid to utter the no. As if that, no, is as sinful as molesting a 5-year-old child.
“Our company works hard, including nights and weekends. Is that okay for you?”
I hung up the phone, too timid to utter a no, as if that no were as sinful as molesting a child.
Life is a game, yet I’m the Snorlax misplaced in Mario Kart.
I would never be fast enough.
I am mortified and buried in my unproductivity.
Interestingly, even if you feel as extreme an emotion as mortification about the lack of your productivity, you are also afraid to work nights and weekends. So you're terrified of both alternatives. How come? Or is it another emotion that guides your no nights or weekends decision?
Also, I cannot help but mention the original classic, the first recognition of the fear of the unproductive, "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" [1] and the recent best seller "The Burnout Society" [2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protestant_Ethic_and_the_Spirit_of_Capitalism
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byung-Chul_Han#Thought